Mos Def is my man. Easily one of my top five MCs ever. So you can imagine how amped I was when I found out weeks ago that he was coming to Denver last Saturday, August 26.

Last time I had the opportunity to see Mos, it was last year when he was on tour with Talib Kweli, Pharoahe Monch and Jean Grae. Unfortunately, Mos came down with the flu and had to cancel his portion of the show. Therefore, I was excited to see what we had all missed the year before.

I woke up early Saturday to get a bunch of work done so I could go to the Mos Def show with no stress. All day I labored, succeeding in getting everything caught up. Around 6 p.m., just an hour before the show was to start, I jumped in my car and drove down to Denver’s Fillmore Auditorium. However, I was heavily disappointed to drive by the Fillmore only to find that Mos Def had cancelled his show for the second straight time in Denver.

Angry and let down, I decided that I was headed home. On the way to my car, I came across an edition of the Westword, Denver’s local alternative newspaper that has the best concert listings in town. Although I had little hope in finding any good hip-hop acts in Denver at last second notice, I picked up a copy and decided to see what was going on.

Amazingly, I immediately turned to the live show section to find that Sage Francis had scheduled a last second show at Cervantes, another local venue. I’m a huge Sage fan, so I jumped in the car and headed over for some real underground hip-hop. I walked into Cervantes right at 8 p.m. to a couple tables selling merch and shirts and stuff. As I came up to the last table, I noticed none other than Sage Francis himself selling clothing and mingling with his fans. This amazed me, because I knew Mos probably wouldn’t have done the same at his show.

As the opening acts played, I noticed Sage kicking it all over the place. In the pit nodding his head to the underground acts. At the bar laughing with the employees and club goers. And outside conversing with all the kids smoking squares. I couldn’t help but be impressed by his personal stature and the manner in which he treated his fans.

The last opener before Sage was a group called Educated Figures, two talented mic controllers that ripped a handful of live tracks for the audience. I picked up a copy of their CD, entitled “EF”, and highly recommend checking them out for some good underground hip-hop. When Sage finally came on, he gave an excellent performance, combining lyrical hip-hop, spoken word poetry, political and social dialogue, and jokes upon jokes. “Mos Def was supposed to perform in Denver tonight,” he said, “but cancelled his show when he found out I was going to be in town.” The crowd roared in laughter and agreement.

It took me by suprise at first, because the crowd present at the Sage Francis show was a 180 degree turn from what you’d find at a Mos Def concert. Upon first glance, it looked like I was at a punk rock show. But the longer I watched the crowd interact with the various acts, the more I realized how hip-hop they really were. They had nothing but love for the beats, lyrics and themes. They were live and responsive. And above all, they had nothing but contempt for Mos Def and the show he had just cancelled.

Now don’t get me wrong … like I said earlier, Mos is my man. Nothing will ever change that. But I’ve had about enough of buying tickets to his shows only to be let down with no reimbursement whatsoever. Especially when cats like Sage Francis are representing true hip-hop and showing fan appreciation all over the country. So next time Mos or some other world-famous rapper cancels a show in your area, check out the underground. You never know, Sage Francis might be playing across town, and you might see a different type of hip-hop show. Peace.

Sun Sep 21, 2008 10:43 pm

ecapataz

Joined: 14 Jun 2006
Posts: 1960
Location: Bonn, Germany

Mos Def is a mediocre mc at best, not even top 50.

Sage blows him out of the water in every single aspect of the hip hop game.

Sun Sep 21, 2008 10:55 pm

futuristxen

Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 19377
Location: Tighten Your Bible Belt

Sage is very good with the customer service. Which is a good way to breed loyalty in the fanbase. Some of you would know this if you got off the message board and actually went to some shows ;)

Sage is really good at giving off the vibe that he geniunely cares about what you have to say. It used to weird me out a little bit only because I wasn't really used to people listening to what I had to say. Let alone an artist whose work I really loved.

At any rate, Mos Def sucks. He's boring as hell. He, Common, and Talib are all on bullshit posturing with boring flows over boring beats with boring lyrics that never say anything new, interesting, or engaging. Black Thought can go into that group too. When people tell me any of those are their favorite artist, then to me they might as well have said Coldplay is the most real band ever. Shit's fake, and not even fake in an interesting way.

Sun Sep 21, 2008 11:26 pm

mobe

Joined: 06 Feb 2008
Posts: 1179

It's the Chappelle effect. Mos Def and Talib Kweli rode flashes of early brilliance and the godlike hipness factor that Dave Chappelle got in the early 2000's to get to make several more mediocre albums than most rappers ever get a chance to make. The push should have gone to Dead Prez if anyone. Their albums were less hit or miss and the live show was excellent the one time I saw it. I've never seen Mos or Kweli live, but I've never heard anything that great.

Sun Sep 21, 2008 11:29 pm

futuristxen

Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 19377
Location: Tighten Your Bible Belt

Dave Chapelle is at least 15 times more interesting and original than Mos Def and Kweli. Just because he got frat boy famous, it doesn't really invalidate how great his show was. And the level of success he had off of that dwarfs anything that Mos or Kweli have seen off the rap game.

Mos gets more props for his acting than his rapping, though his acting has kind of fallen into a rutt of sameness as well. He's kind of type-cast at this point as the geeky black guy.

Sun Sep 21, 2008 11:34 pm

ber lerac

Joined: 21 Dec 2003
Posts: 230

i like mos.

that said, i finally got around to listening to 'the glow', a recently leaked track.

horrible.

Sun Sep 21, 2008 11:42 pm

mobe

Joined: 06 Feb 2008
Posts: 1179

futuristxen wrote: Dave Chapelle is at least 15 times more interesting and original than Mos Def and Kweli. Just because he got frat boy famous, it doesn't really invalidate how great his show was. And the level of success he had off of that dwarfs anything that Mos or Kweli have seen off the rap game.

Mos gets more props for his acting than his rapping, though his acting has kind of fallen into a rutt of sameness as well. He's kind of type-cast at this point as the geeky black guy.

My original post was not a Chappelle critique. I love the guy, always have. I used to watch him in the 90's on Conan and Stern and laugh my ass off. I loved his Comedy Central show as well. I even like the shitty cash-in "Lost episodes" Comedy Central put out. That DVD is worth it for just for the couple of raw, bitter sketches about Dave's new found fame. There's one where he goes back to the first club he ever played and burns it down. So fucking dark.

My point was that Mos Def and Talib Kweli got a huge non-rap game boost from the universally awesome press Dave Chappelle was getting by virtue of their appearances on his show.

Mon Sep 22, 2008 12:10 am

DM

Joined: 05 Jul 2002
Posts: 6371
Location: www.NERDTORIOUS.com

I don't know how anyone can dismiss Mos' early work. And that car ride scene with him and Chapelle is pretty slick, I think. His other performances on that show were pretty weak though.

I think he got a boost when he started doing TV work, and people were like "oh he raps too?", not the Chappelle show.

Sure dude sucks now, and has for a while, but his appearances on De La's joints, that Beat Junkies mixtape, Blackstarr and even Black On Both Sides are really smart, and dude definitely has presence on the mic.

Sage vs Mos, is a pretty silly argument if you ask me. Can't they just both do their own thing?

Mon Sep 22, 2008 1:15 am

Eltron Hubbardtry-harderator

Joined: 20 Sep 2006
Posts: 1506
Location: glub glub

I like that song "respiration" by Blackstar very much. Especially the singing at the end. That's a great song. As is "re-definition".

Mos Def is a better singer than Sage Francis.
But Sage Francis is much funnier. He says funny things on youtube and everywhere!

Mon Sep 22, 2008 1:31 am

poisonfree

Joined: 23 Aug 2002
Posts: 1525
Location: Macramento

Quote: Sage is very good with the customer service.

+99 He takes care of his business. the whole SFR crew looks out for us people who work hard for our money and willing to sacrifice a small piece for their work.

and on stage Sage takes care of business. Every time he has a show he is out there selling himself by putting on great shows, and making us feel like we got our money's worth.

Being on point, every time, on every front, is no doubt hard work. But this surely ups his odds for success, in fact whenever I take someone to a sage show who has never been, they leave saying "Wow" and usually pickup CD's at the door and proceed to blabber the whole drive home about how impressed they were.

not trying to suck your cock bone Sage, but your hard work is appreciated.

Mon Sep 22, 2008 1:40 am

crusaderHALFLING

Joined: 09 Apr 2006
Posts: 664

i've only heard bad things about mos and talib live. so while i can't comment on that or their customer service generally, the blackstar album remains one of the best hip hop albums of that place and time. of this i am sure.

Mon Sep 22, 2008 2:42 am

laurapalmer

Joined: 10 Jul 2002
Posts: 1477

black star and black on both sides are still tremendous.

since then, mos has done 3 songs in total that haven't been total shit.

that said, if those two records were my entire worthwhile recorded output, i would be able to sleep at night. i can think of a hell of a lot of rappers that could only manage one hot song.

Mon Sep 22, 2008 5:51 am

Reggie

Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 5766
Location: Queens, NYC

the moral of the story is that Mos Def is responsible for genocide in Darfur, Sage is not.

Mon Sep 22, 2008 6:56 am

Mark in Minnesota

Joined: 02 Jan 2004
Posts: 2053
Location: Saint Louis Park, MN

I have The New Danger and True Magic both in my "recently-ripped" playlist. This means I haven't formed a final conclusion on either album, but I've _frequently_ noticed myself really enjoying tracks from those albums when they turn up in a larger shuffle. This wasn't at all true of either Black Star or Black on Both Sides, at least not for me. There aren't a lot of hot songs on the two more recent albums, but at least for me, there are a lot of good (but not necessarily memorable) songs. I think the word I'm looking for is "craftsmanship".

Mon Sep 22, 2008 8:31 am

futuristxen

Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 19377
Location: Tighten Your Bible Belt

The Black Star album has two maybe three good songs.

Mon Sep 22, 2008 8:38 am

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